Party with the Animals, Sunday August 24th

Sunday afternoon was Maura's birthday party at Dalby Farm. Maura and her mother and I were joined by many of her friends and relations for more birthday celebrations. Everyone had a wonderful time on a nearly perfect afternoon.

Dalby Farm, located in Scituate, Massachusetts, keeps rare breeds of farm animals including goats, sheep, pigs, geese, ducks and chickens. They breed some of the animals to help preserve the endangered breeds. They also keep some more common chickens for eggs. The very friendly folks who run the place gave children and tag-along parents a tour of the farm. We got to feed the goats and Maura chose Pepper, the Nigerian Dwarf goat as her party animal. We all got to pet him. He was remarkably calm and gentle with all of the children, including the grown up ones.

After the farm tour we retired to the party barn for cake and ice cream. The kids didn't eat much of the cake so there were plenty of scraps to feed the chickens. I sneaked off to watch them eat. It was one of the highlights of the day for me. Chickens don't have very good manners and the mess they make of chocolate cake is rather comical.

After desert the kids had a haystack hunt. They got to dig through a pile of hay for treats. Finding the goodies in the hay was harder than it looked. It was easy to find a few things but tough to find all of them. The kids really enjoyed themselves and they all came out of it with full bags of goodies. They didn't want to stop looking. When we left Maura got a picture of Pepper and a T-shirt from the farm as parting gifts to help her remember her trip to the farm.

Everyone at the farm was amazingly friendly. They seemed to be having almost as much fun as we were and clearly enjoyed their work on the farm, both with the animals and their human visitors. Cheryl, who introduced us to the animals, even sent us a note to thank us for coming.

Six, Wednesday August 20th, 2008

Wednesday was Maura's sixth birthday. We celebrated it with a family outing of Maura's choice. What she chose was a trip to the Boston Science Museum, a Boston Duck Tour and dinner out at Addis Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant in the South End at which we had eaten to celebrate my birthday. We had three generations of the family along. Maura's mom took the day off from work and my parents came for a visit from Indiana. They like to visit their only grandchild on her birthday.

The Science Museum is almost as much fun as the Children's Museum for Maura and it is a lot more fun for me. Most of the Science Museum exhibits are hands-on mini experiments that encourage curiosity and wonder. We spent several hours there and didn't see nearly everything. We had to leave in order to get dinner before Maura's bed time but I think she could have handled another hour at the museum without getting bored. I could have easily handled another hour. While there was a good crowd for a Wednesday the Science Museum is much larger than the Children's Museum and the average age of the visitors is a bit higher. The ambient noise and chaos are much more bearable.

One thing that Maura doesn't like at the Science Museum is the lightning show where they demonstrate static electricity using the giant Van de Graaff generator. Maura is a bit sensitive to loud noises and she remembered being frightened of them the last time we visited the museum.

We took two hours out of the middle of our museum visit to take a Boston Duck Tour. We rode the Haymarket Hannah piloted by Admiral Amnesia. He didn't forget much except for his pants. The tour was a lot of fun and as far as I could tell information was good. Since I used to be a tour guide in Boston I do know a bit about the city. When we left the streets of the Boston for the waters of the Charles River the kids on board got to take a turn driving the bus. Maura enjoyed her turn at the wheel.

Our final activity for the day was dinner at Addis Red Sea. We had been there once before and Maura wanted to share the restaurant with her grandparents. The restaurant is a lot of fun. It has lots of neat touches, including serving meals on Mesobs, traditional low basket tables. Ethiopian food is exotic and flavorful and eaten with the hands using thin spongy injera bread. We were able to sample a variety of dishes with five people at the table. There was one alarming incident at the end of the evening though. My dad paid for the meal with a credit card and the waitress dropped it on the way back to the table. The card was found but it could have been a problem.

Trailside, Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Maura and I took advantage of a day of nice weather to get outside and enjoy nature. I was also looking for something that wouldn't cost much after Wednesday's expensive lunch. We packed a picnic lunch into my day pack and headed for the Blue Hills Reservation, Metropolitan Boston's largest park and a real gem. The only costs for the day were gas and food, and both were already paid for. The gas was in the tank already and the food was scavenged out of the refrigerator.

Our first stop was the Trailside Museum, an exhibit on the environment and wildlife of the Blue Hills run by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Because we are member of Mass Audubon we get into the museum for free. The Trailside Museum is home to many live animals that live or once lived in the Blue Hills. Most are rescued animals that could not survive on their own in the wild. We enjoyed watching turtles and the bees that inhabit an indoor hive between two plate glass windows.

After our visit to the Trailside Museum we took a hike from the museum to the Reservation Headquarters where Maura could get a stamp in her DCR passport that she got Tuesday at the Children's Museum. We stopped along the way to enjoy our picnic lunch while we sat on a fallen log by the side of the trail. On our way out we chose an easy, nearly flat trail and headed back by a slightly longer and more challenging route. We spotted two small toads by the trail as we climbed a steep path over the top of a rock hill and as we were returning to our car spotted a whole flock of goldfinches that were feeding in a field of wildflowers.

The Children's Museum, Tuesday August 12th, 2008

With a steady rain falling, I drove Maura and I to the T-station, stopping on the way to purchase a small umbrellas, since we didn't have one handy and it promised to rain all day. As it happened, the rain stopped and barely used the umbrella, but we probably would have needed it if we hadn't had it.

After a quick stop by the building where Jennifer works to deliver a forgotten lunch we headed to Quincy Market to get lunch for ourselves. It might not have been a good choice. We had a fine lunch of clam chowder followed by gelato bought from two of the many food stands inside the central market building. I let Maura pick what we would have and she was not disappointed. I was a bit shocked, though, by how much we spent. The food was delicious and the service wasn't bad despite the crowds and the fact that we were eating at a lunch counter, but the bills seemed high even for Boston.

When lunch was over we deviated from out original plan of visiting the Old State House and headed for the Children's Museum instead. Since I got a membership the last time we went the Children's Museum won't cost us any more for the rest of the year. It was a few extra blocks but Maura doesn't mind walking and I don't think she was disappointed.

At the Museum we enjoyed a few special events. We saw a demonstration of Chinese martial arts put on as part of Boston's China summer of Chinese related cultural events on the occasion of the Beijing Olympic Games. The demonstration was fascinating, to Maura as well as to me. Afterward we picked up a Department of Conservation and Recreation Park Passport and a poster of the stamp designs for it, signed by the artist.

Shortly after that we headed home. I was finding the noise and chaos of the Children's Museum a little hard to deal with and was starting to get a headache. Maura wasn't ready to leave but she didn't give me any trouble. She's starting to learn that complaining doesn't help and knows that I will take her back again.

Cape Cod Road Trip, Sunday August 10th, 2008

This Sunday the whole family got into the car and headed for Cape Cod to visit some old friends who had invited us to a barbecue at there home. My wife Jennifer and I shared the driving and Maura came along for the ride.

It was great for the adults to see old friends and Maura had a wonderful time meeting new people. She always does. She got into a game of touch football and she and I had a good time trying to play horseshoes. I managed a few ringers but Maura never to get the hang of it. I'm uncertain whether she is big enough to pitch the horseshoe the whole distance but she enjoyed trying, not the least because her daddy was trying with her. It didn't really matter to either of us whether she could ever hit a ringer.

We were lucky with the weather. It's been rainy on Cape Cod this summer as it has been in the rest of Massachusetts. It didn't rain on the barbecue though. We did hear a storm in the distance that made Maura nervous and we drove past another on our way home as I negotiated the Sunday traffic heading back towards Boston from the Cape.

Visiting the Old House, August 7th 2008

Today Maura and I took our second research trip. We hopped the bus from Weymouth to the neighboring town of Quincy, Massachusetts, home of John Adams and his descendants. We stopped in at the National Park Service Visitor Center in Quincy Center, across the street from Quincy Center T station and bought our tickets. The price was very reasonable. Adults pay $5 for a two hour tour and kids 16 and under are free.

The tour visits three houses owned by John Adams and lived in by him and generations of his family. The first two houses are the Adams' birth places, the house where John Adams was born and the house next door where he lived with Abigail and his young family before the Revolution and where Abigail lived during his long absence during the War of Independence. This was the house that John Quincy Adams was born in.

While we were in the birth places Maura was interested and paid attention. We had a junior ranger book and we trying to fill in some of the pages. I think she was learning and enjoying the experience. The tour then took us to the house John Adams bought when he returned to the United States after he was minister to Britain following the War of Independence. He called it Peacefield and later generations of the Adams family called it the Old House. It was bigger and had a lot more stuff to look at and Maura started getting bored. Maura probably likes history much more than the average almost six year old but I don't blame her for getting tired of looking at old paintings and furniture and hearing about people who died a long time ago. I think she also had to go to the bathroom and there wasn't one handy.

After we caught the trolley back to the Visitor Center and she used the restroom there we got some lunch. Maura picked the restaurant from the many choices in Quincy Center. She picked a Mexican restaurant called Acapulco's. Maura enjoyed her taco but decided that next time she wanted to try what I had, enchiladas. We had a good lunch before catching the bus home.

Our First Trip, August 5th 2008

We waited until 9:30 when rush hour was over before leaving the house for the day. A short walk brought Maura and I to the nearest MBTA bus stop. I plan to make as many trips as possible using public transportation. Parking in Boston still costs more than gas and I don't like to swear in front of my daughter, which are two excellent reasons for taking the T.

Our destination was a familiar one and one of Maura's favorite places since she was two--the Boston Children's Museum. It took us a little less than an hour to get there by bus and Red Line train, including the two block walk across the Fort Point Channel from South Station. In the plaza in front of the Museum we sampled bamboo shoots, which Maura didn't care for, and considered how we would spend our day. Then we went in to buy our tickets. I opted for a membership, partly as an early birthday present for Maura who will be turning six soon. We'll need to go seven times during the next year to get our money's worth and Maura will appreciate the more frequent visits then we've made during the last few years.

The purpose of the day's visit was to begin doing research for our book and we had come armed with notebooks for recording the day. I let Maura mostly pick our itinerary at the Museum. As usual she climbed the three story climber that graces the Children's Museum's lobby and then spent some time in the crowded and noisy exhibits near the museum entrance. Raceways, which teaches physics and the scientific method with rolling golf balls on various tracks, has always been a favorite. After a while we move to the slightly quieter and less chaotic exhibits upstairs.

At around 12:30 its lunch time. We're both hungry and I could use a while off of my feet. We buy hot dogs at the Hood Milk Bottle, now run by the Au Bon Pain restaurant in the Children's Museum. While we eat our lunch we enjoy watching the sparrows steal food right out of the pigeons beaks.

After lunch we pick up free tickets to the next Kidstage showing of The Three Little Pigs. Maura's seen Kidstage shows before, but this was my first. It was an audience participation skit where the most of the cast was picked from the audience and the whole audience had lines. Maura and I had a good time repeating "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin," together.

After the show we headed back upstairs. We checked out the new (and temporary) China exhibit, the Children of Hangchow which features kids from Boston's sister city in China. Maura dressed up like an actress in a Chinese opera and enjoyed looking at stereo pictures of Chinese sites and at the model water buffalo and the video about a girl's visit to the country where she learns how to plant rice.

Our visit would not be complete without the obligatory visit to the art studio. On this trip Maura made a picture with water colors and crayons. She learned that if she painted over crayon the paint wouldn't stick to the crayon.

We left the museum at about 3:00 and headed for home. I wanted to be sure that I had time to make dinner after we got home but before I had to be at work in the evening. I also wanted to beat rush hour. I had made a list of questions to ask Maura after the trip but I never did. I was too tired and needed to rest. We'll be back at the Children's Museum again soon.

A Journey Begins.....

About six months ago, fresh from the triumph of landing my first paid writing job since I was in grad school in the '90s, I started considering what to do next. I was working on a travel book and was interested in doing another one. I needed a local topic, since I don't have the money to actually travel, so as with my as yet unfinished first book, I would cover the Boston Metropolitan Area, where I live. I looked around for a fresh angle that would set my new book apart from other Boston travel books on the market. I found my daughter, Maura.

Maura is five years old. She plays soccer and does gymnastics. She likes Poly Pocket and My Little Pony. She loves doing almost any kind of art project and she writes and illustrates her own stories. She also enjoys outings with her mother and I. We take her hiking on local trails. We take her out to eat (she like calamari) and we take her to museums, which she loves.

Since Maura enjoys museums almost as much as I do I decided to write a book tentatively titled Maura's Guide to Boston Museums for Kids (and Their Parents). I'd enlist Maura's help as research assistant and begin by visiting as many museums in the Boston area together as we could. Maura is enthusiastic about the project and has told all her friends that she's going to write a book with her Daddy. Now I have to do it.